It was the biggest dinner ever held
in the Waldorf-Astoria, which means
perhaps the biggest in New York city.
Several years ago the Republican
Club entertained Col. Roosevelt at the
Waldorf and upward of 1,200 men
crammed themselves in to eat and
drink and cheer. Last night's broke
all the records. There were exactly
1,448 at the tables and more than 100
who came late were not able to sit
down at all. Every square foot of
space in the grand ballroom except
the narrow lanes for the waiters was
occupied. The dinner overflowed into
the Astor gallery, where elbow room
was desired and denied. There were
tables in the hallways and tables set
in the two levels of boxes—something
that doesn't happen in a generation.
The stage was set with attention to detail shown by professionals. Besides the big drop curtain behind the head table, which depicted the old Brick Row as it was in Taft's time, they had strung a section of rail fence in front of the table, a replica of the fence on which Mr. Taft used to whittle his initials. The elms of the picture sent their tops as far outward on the canvas as possible, and then the illusion was carried out cunningly by the greenery that underhung the ceiling. The ballroom floor was the campus of Yale, and the illusion was produced pretty successfully.
All through the smilax and vines of the ceiling were thousands and thousands of pink roses, roses past all counting. There were clusters and pots of them on the table tops, hung from the balconies and draped around swinging incandescents, which glowed pink when the lights were lowered. All of these things were accomplished by Noble F. Hoggson of '88, who got busy in the banquet room at 2 o'clock yesterday morning after a ball had danced itself out.
